Rivera: Panthers' new offense will be more of a collaberative effort

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Ground and pound is over here. Can we run better and utilize RBs more? Sure....

But this isn't a ground and pound team with Newton as the QB

It is not a conventional ground and pound but i think its even better with the threat of Newton.......Newton is the most dangerous in short yard situation, redzone, and scrambling........ pair that with our RB corp if they are "utilized properly" we will wear defense down......

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Yep...Chud was greatly overrated. I got blasted for it....but he wasn't good.

Playing calling was questionable from the start of 2011 until he left. Too often Chud would was to score or move the hard way when the easy way....running Cam or a RB was the painfully obvious.

Cam could of asked any OC to let him have read option looks incorporated into his playbook. We have seen the same thing with Wash, Sea, SF. That isn't the mark of a great OC....a bad OC is being inches away from a TD and putting Cam and 3 RBs on the shelf.

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and yeah I thought it worked the same way between Shula and Rivera. Rivera will still game manage and Shula will call plays and make it easier for him to manage. Kind of like #1 on Star Trek. Shula will do all the bullshit game management that are "givens" along with his other duties and the larger decisions will be made by Rivera. Rivera will interject only when he sees something that needs his attention. Otherwise he'll be too busy calculating other poo.

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The thing is that sometimes the stats you post are skewed and misleading. For example using rankings instead of absolute numbers can lead to very misleading numbers. For example what is the difference between the 10th team, Cincinnatti(.124) (30 turnovers) and 17th team, Carolina (.145) (27 forced but only 23 turnovers) in total turnovers. When you consider they had 13 more defensive drives what was the big difference. Maybe that we jumped on 12 out of 16 fumbles forced and they jumped on everyone of their 16?? Significant?? Hardly..... What about yards per drive? We were 20th at 31.96 or 32 yards per drive. The 10 th ranked defense gave up 29.62 or 30 yards per drive. So we suck because we gave up an average of 2 more yards per drive??

How come you didn't mention TDs per drive where we were 13th (.194) or fumbles per drive where we were 9th( .059). Also didn't mention that we were close to the bottom in regards to LOS/drive (24th at 28.65) suggesting our defense was put at a disadvantage much of the time.

You also failed to put things in context that when you compare the offense and the defense together and look at a net factor like yards per drive we ended up 10th, right below Atlanta. To say we were terrible is hyperbole more than fact.

For those who want the numbers instead of largely useless rankings, here are the numbers from football outsiders so you can compare yourself.

So what are you saying? That if we only would have been better on defense we would have been better on defense? What good does numbers do to determine our standing in the league if not compared to the rest of the league?? You have to use ranking to compare otherwise they are just numbers without context. What you are saying provides less context not more. When stats are broken down into drive stats small differences have big impacts. Otherwise you could just make the argument that all the teams are the same because the drive stats aren't that far apart.

I didn't say we sucked last year, we sucked in 2011, but I did say we were moderately bad on defense. And as for your example of we were only 2 yards behind the number 10 ranked defense, 2 yards per drive over 170 possession is 340 yards. That is very significant. If our average starting field position is the 30 yard line (28.15 was the actual average) that is nearly 5 TDs difference. I think anyone could see that is significant.

I did mention 13th in TDs per drive as I also mentioned our 3rd down success percentage. They are in the same sentence. I didn't include fumbles per drive because it is covered broadly in turnovers per drive. Instead of using fumbles and interceptions separatelyI used the stat that I felt encompassed them both.

I did not use our starting field position because it doesn't alter anything that much. Evidenced by Pittsburgh's defense being among the worst in starting field position (28th) but still ranks among the best in every other category and Indianapolis being among the best in starting field position and (3rd) and among the worst in every other category.

I also didn't add starting line of scrimmage because the defense doesn't control that, so I felt it didn't have much bearing on our defensive statisitcs as a whole.

NET stats don't provide any context for defense so I don't know why you even included that. NET stats can be bolstered by a great offense or a great defense as it compares between the two. That is more of a team stat.

For instance we are ranked tenth because our offense averaged 1.86 yards per drive more than our defense allowed. That could be a result of good defense or good offense, but doesn't say much about one or the other.

So I stand by my earlier post that our defense, while greatly improved is still not what I would consider a good or even average defense.

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So what are you saying? That if we only would have been better on defense we would have been better on defense? What good does numbers do to determine our standing in the league if not compared to the rest of the league?? You have to use ranking to compare otherwise they are just numbers without context. What you are saying provides less context not more. When stats are broken down into drive stats small differences have big impacts. Otherwise you could just make the argument that all the teams are the same because the drive stats aren't that far apart.

I didn't say we sucked last year, we sucked in 2011, but I did say we were moderately bad on defense. And as for your example of we were only 2 yards behind the number 10 ranked defense, 2 yards per drive over 170 possession is 340 yards. That is very significant. If our average starting field position is the 30 yard line (28.15 was the actual average) that is nearly 5 TDs difference. I think anyone could see that is significant.

I did mention 13th in TDs per drive as I also mentioned our 3rd down success percentage. They are in the same sentence. I didn't include fumbles per drive because it is covered broadly in turnovers per drive. Instead of using fumbles and interceptions separatelyI used the stat that I felt encompassed them both.

I did not use our starting field position because it doesn't alter anything that much. Evidenced by Pittsburgh's defense being among the worst in starting field position (28th) but still ranks among the best in every other category and Indianapolis being among the best in starting field position and (3rd) and among the worst in every other category.

I also didn't add starting line of scrimmage because the defense doesn't control that, so I felt it didn't have much bearing on our defensive statisitcs as a whole.

NET stats don't provide any context for defense so I don't know why you even included that. NET stats can be bolstered by a great offense or a great defense as it compares between the two. That is more of a team stat.

For instance we are ranked tenth because our offense averaged 1.86 yards per drive more than our defense allowed. That could be a result of good defense or good offense, but doesn't say much about one or the other.

So I stand by my earlier post that our defense, while greatly improved is still not what I would consider a good or even average defense.

You can skew numbers to make a point....but if you watched any of the games we where top 10 defense that held the ground until last few minutes due to conservative play calls and depth (due to injuries) ..........you don't have 2 DE with 10+ sacks....... a LB that is DROY without a good defense.

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So what are you saying? That if we only would have been better on defense we would have been better on defense? What good does numbers do to determine our standing in the league if not compared to the rest of the league?? You have to use ranking to compare otherwise they are just numbers without context. What you are saying provides less context not more. When stats are broken down into drive stats small differences have big impacts. Otherwise you could just make the argument that all the teams are the same because the drive stats aren't that far apart.

I didn't say we sucked last year, we sucked in 2011, but I did say we were moderately bad on defense. And as for your example of we were only 2 yards behind the number 10 ranked defense, 2 yards per drive over 170 possession is 340 yards. That is very significant. If our average starting field position is the 30 yard line (28.15 was the actual average) that is nearly 5 TDs difference. I think anyone could see that is significant.

I did mention 13th in TDs per drive as I also mentioned our 3rd down success percentage. They are in the same sentence. I didn't include fumbles per drive because it is covered broadly in turnovers per drive. Instead of using fumbles and interceptions separatelyI used the stat that I felt encompassed them both.

I did not use our starting field position because it doesn't alter anything that much. Evidenced by Pittsburgh's defense being among the worst in starting field position (28th) but still ranks among the best in every other category and Indianapolis being among the best in starting field position and (3rd) and among the worst in every other category.

I also didn't add starting line of scrimmage because the defense doesn't control that, so I felt it didn't have much bearing on our defensive statisitcs as a whole.

NET stats don't provide any context for defense so I don't know why you even included that. NET stats can be bolstered by a great offense or a great defense as it compares between the two. That is more of a team stat.

For instance we are ranked tenth because our offense averaged 1.86 yards per drive more than our defense allowed. That could be a result of good defense or good offense, but doesn't say much about one or the other.

So I stand by my earlier post that our defense, while greatly improved is still not what I would consider a good or even average defense.

As I said earlier your interpretation of the stats you selectively pick is somewhat questionable in my mind. For example your whole example of 2 yards times 170 drives equates to 340 yards might work mathmetically but in the real word it doesn't. For example the 10th ranked defense in yards per drive was San Diego which finished 9th in total yards surrendered while we finished 10th. The difference in total yards over the season was 7 yards per game (326 to 333) times 16 games or 114 yards not the 340 yards you quoted. So obviously your analysis while interesting is not accurate based on the facts. Secondly to assume that the 114 yards equates to touchdowns is ridiculous and totally incorrect. Since when does yards equate to points.

Again you didn't address the real issue which is rankings sometimes appear to suggest big differences when actually they are not. As I mentioned fumbles and interceptions don't vary that much except at the extremes so to assume that the difference of a turnover every 3 games is significant is also hyperbole at it's best.

Why did I mention net stats? Using net stats is a good way of showing how the team did as a whole which is the way the game is played. You don't win on offense and lose on defense you win or lose as a team. Net stats show the team as a whole which is important to the bottom line since units on the team don't operate in a vacuum but as a combined unit.

And LOS is one of the most important stats to look at in context. Defenses that start out on their own 30 yards line and give up 32 yards per drive mean the opponent team on average ends up on your 38 yard line which is a long but makeable field goal at roughly 54 yards. Starting 5 yards back at the 25 now makes the field goal from the 43 or roughly 59 yards resulting in a punt. So yeah starting field position makes a big difference and one of the big reasons we allowed so many points and were ranked in the 20s in points per drive but top 15 when comparing TDs per drive. But also note that I am not equating yards with points simply a shorter field makes it easier for the opponent to score and harder to defend.

Your analysis simply reinforces the notion that the numbers are the numbers but the interpretation is what makes it useful or not.